With all the snow, swimming lessons and general adulting responsibility my gym visits have been few and far between.  When I do finally make it to the gym, I rely on these training principles to get the most out of my lifting session.

The more you pay attention to the physical strength you’re trying to build, the more in tune your mind will be to what’s happening to all parts of your body, and the greater your ability to keep challenging both your mind and your muscles. How can you do that?

The mind muscle connection: 

The mind muscle connection is a conscious and deliberate muscle contraction. It’s the ability to focus the tension you create during exercise on a specific muscle or region of muscles in the body, which is the difference between passively and actively moving the weight.

When you focus on using specific muscles to create contractions, the brain calls upon a greater percentage of high muscle fibers to complete the task.  By creating tension in the right muscles, your body is better able to gain strength and size in all the right places.

Focused attention:

Focused attention is how well the brain can concentrate on a specific activity for a given amount of time. Two types of attention are important during exercise: internal focus and external focus.

Internal focus is when you concentrate on the specifics of what your body is doing. For example, during a crunch your mind focuses on contracting the anterior abdominal muscles while flexing the spine (engaged core).  An external focus is how your body relates to the environment during exercise. For example in a chest press the focus is to push the weight away from your body.

Cueing:

Cueing  is a tool used by fitness instructors and trainers to help clients improve movement and performance. You can use cueing on your own to help improve how your brain connects to the right muscle fibers. Pay attention to your form and note what you want to work on.

Some of m y favorite cues that I use at the set up of vertically every exercise include:

• Plant your feet
• Shoulders back
• Squeeze your glutes
• engage your core

These cues are how I ensure that every lifting session is a workout for my abdominal and my core, even if I dont actually do any abdominal specific exercises.

Time under tension:

The more time under tension you spend during a lift, the stronger and bigger your muscles grow. Time under tension can be increased in various ways.

One way is to pause during peak contraction. For example, you can hold a glute squeeze at the top of a bridge, pause during the flexed position during a bicep curl.

Another way is to slow down the eccentric, or elongating portion of the exercise. Adding a 3-second eccentric movement improves your mind-muscle connection because your mind automatically focuses on controlling the slowed down the movement.

Additionally, isometric contractions are another great way to increase time under tension and improve how your brain relates to the muscle.  A great example of this would be a wall sit  or a plank.

Bottom line….

Your mind has plenty of ways to connect with your muscles during exercise. Choose one thing to focus on at a time and build this skill as you become more in tune with your body.

Mind-muscle connection won’t come overnight. It will take weeks, months, even years of practice to perfect. So don’t get frustrated if you don’t master it on day one. Typically, arms and legs are the easiest to get right.  Chest and back, are much more tricky.

But remember… The more you train and the more muscle you build, the easier mind-muscle connection becomes. So be patient and give it time. You’ll get there if you’re willing to put in the work.